It’s been a hot minute since the words “prestige original” and the fine folks at Sony were intertwined in the same thought, especially in the half-decade since they parted ways with moi. Oh, sure, they’ve had their fair share of successes and even a few projects that cut through the clutter to become buzzworthy in the process. But those tended to be spin-offs and adaptations of existing IP, such as Prime Video’s GEN V that spawned from the BOYS-verse that I was fortunate enough to see the quirky Eric Kripke give rise to, and HBO’s THE LAST OF US, birthed from the PlayStation-verse that brought together theretofore disjointed areas of the company and allowed them to capitalize on each other’s strengths–which gave me the opportunity to be a tad more conversant about gamers than most eye-rollable boomers typically are.
Sony and “prestige original” used to be far more common and synonymous thoughts when Vince Gilligan was at work, and for nearly two decades he helped many of my former colleagues and bosses to become quite successful–first with BREAKING BAD, which FX heartbreakingly conceded to its AMC arch-rival when the idea of elevating a show that celerated crystal meth was a bridge too far at a time when Rupert Murdoch was seeking government approval to acquire THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and then its spin-off BETTER CALL SAUL, which kept the original flames alive while the opportunistic sales force took the former and became one of Netflix’s first poster childs on how it can take otherwise modestly viewed IP and expose it to a much larger audience, serving essentially as a launching pad for anything that’s connected to it. But since SAUL wrapped four years ago, Gilligan has been unusually quiet, working on a super-secret project that my one-time colleagues were apparently willing to double down on sight unseen. Ambigiously titled PLUR1BUS (yes, that’s the stylized spelling), the fine folk at Apple TV (now plus-less) gave a two-season order to secure it, making the first deal their former colleague whose Sony golden parachute included a hookup with Gilligan arguably better than most of the ones he was able to engineer during his lackluster tenure as the head of the studio. Last night, the rest of us finally got to see why such bullishness was rampant.
PLUR1BUS is a provocative sci-fi thriller that taps into the attitude Gilligan first put on display as a prolific contributor to THE X-FILES and channels it through a lead whose breakthrough potential was most evident in the latter years of SAUL. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Daniel Feinberg is already crowing about that wise choice:
For several years, you could set your watch by a series of recurring columns written by TV critics. In June, there was, “Why Emmy Voters Would Be Dumb To Ignore Better Call Saul Star Rhea Seahorn!” followed in July by, “Why Emmy Voters Were Dumb to Ignore Rhea Seehorn!” That evolved in the AMC drama’s last two seasons to, “Holy Cow, Emmy Voters Nominated Rhea Seehorn!” and finally “Man, Emmy Voters Really Loved Not Giving Emmys to Better Call Saul!” It was a roller coaster. Like several of my peers, I had concerns about the kind of parts that Seehorn might be offered once Better Call Saul ended. When Gilligan announced that she would be the star of his follow-up series, his first creation or co-creation outside of that television universe since The Lone Gunman in 2001 (unless you count CBS’ Battle Creek, which you probably shouldn’t), it was cause for celebration. If anybody knew how to make a Rhea Seehorn vehicle, it would be Gilligan. Right? That question can be answered simply: Correct!]
Seehorn is the most familiar and omnipresent face seen in the first two hours which dropped yesterday. And she’s given a lot of runway to perform on, as PEOPLE’s Christopher Rudolph explained:
According to the series’ logline, Pluribus is about “the most miserable person on Earth [who] must save the world from happiness.” That “miserable person” is Carol Sturka (Seehorn), a romance author who tries to save the world after an extraterrestrial signal creates a virus that turns all of humanity into beings who are genial but creepy. “She goes on a quest to the other side of the world trying to save it from a crisis that in her mind is apocalyptic,” Gilligan told TV Insider. “But perhaps it’s not as bad as she thinks. We leave that to the audience: Is this dystopic or utopic?”
LOOPER’s Mike Bedard is already hooked, lined, and sinkered, as he gushed to his readership with SPOILER ALERTS aplenty:
Vince Gilligan’s “Pluribus” has already cemented itself as one of the best TV shows of 2025 with virtually unanimous praise from critics — Looper’s review of “Pluribus” gives it a perfect 10/10. The first episode plays like a zombie outbreak where everyone gets affected by some unknown virus, but they don’t die. They buffer for a while before coming back to their senses, only now they have their sights locked onto Carol, who was unaffected. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for her manager and romantic partner Helen (Miriam Shor), who dies during the takeover. Carol, understandably distraught, learns that this virus (or “psychic glue,” as they call it) hails from lightyears away and seeks to assimilate planets. Carol and about a dozen others around the globe are the only ones not affected.
That first hour ends with some familiar-looking scenes of apocalypse and zombie-ish behavior–things we’ve seen for decades in everything from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS to THE WALKING DEAD–not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. But it’s the second hour, where Carol is realizing exactly the degree of responsibility that has been given to her to determine the fate of the human race, where Gilligan’s originality, and indeed Seehorn’s acting chops, shine brighter and more uniquely. SCREENRANT’s Dhruv Sharma offered this explanation:
Even when she interacts with other immune “survivors,” she ends up saying things that drive them away from her. However, surprisingly, just when Carol’s infected chaperon, Zosia, is about to leave with one of the other immune individuals, Koumba, she makes the intriguing decision of stopping the plane instead of letting her go. All survivors, except Koumba, leave after Carol makes them believe that her worldview and resistance against the virus would cause more harm than good. Carol meets Koumba, hoping that he will still agree with her. To her shock, though, he only stays behind to ask her if her chaperon, Zosia, can join his circle of “romantic partners.”
Carol is disgusted by how Koumba exploits the apocalypse to pull off something unethical and immoral like this. Although Koumba tries to defend himself by claiming he actually admires Zosia, Carol calls him out for taking the agreeability and niceness of the infected for granted. Therefore, instead of agreeing to let Zosia leave, she asks her to call the shots and decide what she wants.
With this, Zosia boards the plane Koumba while Carol prepares to go home. However, a sudden realization prompts Carol to stop Koumba’s plane. Although the episode ends here, Carol’s change of heart seems to have something to do with Zosia’s decision to leave. The fact that Zosia seems to choose one thing over the other implies that the virus’ hive mind does have some free will.
If it did not have the ability to make decisions for itself, Zosia would not have been able to conclude whether she wanted to stay with Carol or leave with Koumba. Carol seems to understand this towards the end of episode 2, seemingly realizing that she can leverage this to somehow find a way to find a cure for the infected. In future episodes, she might try to use Zosia as a vessel to help all the infected restore their humanity.
And that kind of twist serves as the jumping off point that already has amplified PLUR1BUS to the zeitgeist level Apple had previously built with the similarly quirky SEVERANCE. The matcha latte klatsch at THE RINGER have devoted both the teams at THE WATCH and THE PRESTIGE TV PODCAST to parse and nitpick to death this premiere–if you think I’m spoiling things, avoid that platform like the plague until you catch up. The theories and speculation have already amped up the virtual watercooler to a 10 on a 9-point scale. They even think what went down Thursday night that might have prevented some of y’all from getting up to speed was all part of a sinister marketing ploy that calls back to a crucial scene at the end of the first hour where Carol learns the details of the trauma she’s witnessed via her cable box where she scans through the signals of old-school Albuquerque stations before realizing their signals are out–apparently permanently, as she ultimately concludes.
Note to Chris, Andy, Rob, Joanna and their obsessed Reddit board supporters: Vince may indeed may be that weird, but his colleagues aren’t. I saw this exact same scenario play out when Gilligan’s BREAKING BAD prequel EL CAMINO dropped on Netflix and the guy he’s now propping up was overruling every out of the box idea that came from Vince’s exceptionally pop culture-attuned brain. And since even Apple’s most successful shows still don’t reach as many viewers as their competitors, I’d strongly suggest that the last thing he’d want to do is make his path to popularity any more difficult. They all want PLUR1BUS to be Unum.
Until next time…
1 thought on “Will Plur1bus Be Unum?”
It’s the BORG without the implants. Carol get’s pissed off and curses and people die? If that were me, I’d LOVE the power…don’t get me mad, you won’t like it, kinda the HULK theme?
and just WHY does Carol have to be GAY…?!!! And there are just 5 people in the entire WORLD not affected, yet they are all STUPID – give over yourself to a collective mind and be HAPPY. Will see what happens next, but so far I just see a lot of the same ole thing, just a different recipe.
Thanks for the post!